


this is (not) a fairy tale

by kewltie



Series: Magnetic [32]
Category: K-pop, Super Junior
Genre: Kid Fic, M/M, Modern Royalty, alternative korean history, palace au, royal nanny au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-04
Updated: 2018-01-04
Packaged: 2019-02-28 09:26:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,418
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13268532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kewltie/pseuds/kewltie
Summary: Donghae is no Cinderella and this is not a fairy tale.





	this is (not) a fairy tale

Donghae wakes up to a sense of foreboding looming hazily in the back of his mind and the headache of having a drill boring down on his head. He’s under what seems to be an excess amount of quilts and beddings and deeply wrapped in a cocoon that he could potentially suffocate from but honestly who even cares at this point.

“Oh god, just kill me please,” he moans against the pounding headache and the way the back of his mouth tastes like a donkey’s ass.

This is the worst ugh, he thinks despondently, trying to draw up the memories of the night before but it’s all fuzzy and intangible to grasp at right now.

He burrows further into his cocoon, refusing to acknowledge the light of day or wake up at all until he hears a distinctive, “That’s a little excessive don’t you think?” says an amused voice.

Donghae abruptly cast his beddings aside. His unkempt hair falls over his face as he stares up and up into the fond eyes of Hyukjae, sitting by his bedside and looking unfairly well groom in a handsome tailored navy suit that cuts a fine figure against the morning backdrop.

“Your Majesty,” he croaks out and fumbles to sit up but his annoying headache draws him back down again with a defeated groan.

“It’s alright, you can just stay down,” the king says mercifully.

His hand clutches the back of his head. “What’s wrong with me,” he says, feeling a bump that wasn’t there last night, and if that wasn’t the question for the ages he doesn’t know what is. “Why does it feel like I’d been knocked on my head one too many times?”

The king winces, looking terribly apologetic but nonetheless extremely attractive under the light of the chandelier. Very unfair indeed to have Donghae suffer this beautiful infliction so early in the morning. “Junsu and the Imperial Security apologize for slamming your head against the cement.”

“Oh,” Donghae says, touching his throbbing head again. Last night was some weird drunken fever he can’t seem to recall, like a haze that’s blanketing over him and he can’t figure head or tail, where to even start. “That explains a lot.” Except not really, because what could he have done to cause that kind of severed reaction from the Palace’s security service.

And the answer comes soon enough in the form of the doors to his bedroom is violently thrown open without any prior warning. “Lee Donghae, you trouble-making brat! I can’t leave you alone for even a second,” the Secretary of State roars into the room, making a dramatic entrance that could have been scripted into any one of the day time soaps that he habitually watch, and with General Lee trailing dutifully after her.

“Mom,” he squeaks out, and it’s the same way he would have said death or dismemberment, with complete terror bleeding through his voice. This is startlingly becoming a common theme. The one thing that Donghae can always count on ever since he came home is that when you’re staying in a palace with over five hundred rooms and where everybody that seem to associate with the Royal Family in any way also live there, unfortunately including Donghae’s entire family, this means that they having full access to him at all hours of the day and Donghae has very little peace and quiet in between.

“Madame Secretary,” the King greets her, unfazed by the ill-boding storm that is Donghae’s mother. “And General Lee, good to you see both again.”

A man of few words, his father nods in acknowledge. “Your Majesty.”

In the moments between when she realized that’s the king is in the room with them and his father’s first spoken words, his mother had quickly and calmly compose herself in his presence. “My king a pleasure as always,” she responds, with a small bow before turning her unwanted attention onto Donghae. “But if you would excuse us, Your Majesty, we would like to speak with our son privately. We have a lot to discuss.”

It’s not an order but it’s a pretty close thing. Rarely is anyone brave enough to go head to head with the King but his mother, his beautiful fierce mother, had negotiate her way out of a three ways siege fire while she was nine months pregnant with Donghae. There’s very little that she can’t do.

“Then I’ll just take my leave,” the King says, half-shrugging not at all bother by the clear dismissal.

Donghae raises a hand to stop him but hurriedly catches himself in time. His face flames at the thought of asking the king to stay with him just because he doesn’t want to face the full force of disapproval and anger of his parents. _How childish._

Fond eyes grace Donghae once again as the king stands up and leans in close, enough that Donghae can make out the dark circles under the king’s eyes from nights where he had stay up late in his office to finish his work. “I have several things I need to personally take care of but I’ll be back for you don’t worry. I won’t let your parents dispose of your body,” the king says, voice alight with laughter.

Donghae’s face flushes all the more and he casts a quick glance at his mother, just in time to see a suspicious frown adorning her face.

He holds back a wince as he says, drawing up a grin that feels awkward on his face, “Please don’t work yourself too hard, Your Majesty.”

“I won’t. Just get better soon, Donghae, the kids and I have miss you dearly. A day without you is so very dull and colorless,” the king says, a tender smile spreading across his face and Donghae tries not to think what that meant.

Kings are politicians, suave words and charming facets, that’s how that they manage to have an entire nation at their feet. It doesn’t mean anything.

Donghae swallows as he watches the king turns away from him and heads out of the door.

As soon as the king is far enough from them and the door is shut, his mother zeroes in on him like a huntress on her prey.  “Is there something between you and the king I need to know about?” she grills him, approaching his bed where Donghae can find no escape.

Donghae crunches his face up in confusion. “Um, no?”

His mother narrowsher eyes at him. “Is that a question?”

“Uh, I mean no,” he shakes his head frantically, “definitely no.”

“Then tell me why all you but threw yourself at him last night,” his mother says, left eye twitching erratically.

He laughs awkwardly, dread coiling thickly in the pit of his stomach. “I don’t know what you are talking about.”

“Your drinking debacle last night,” she says sharply.

Donghae groans, this is the worst then. It’s not so much that he’s a lightweight but it’s that Donghae is coherent but a sloppy affectionate drunk with a severe inability to keep his hand to himself or keep his filter up.

“It can’t be that bad right?” he asks hopefully but when his mother sends back a searing glare, that hope quickly die a quick and merciless death before it even has a chance to take flight.

“Dear, show Donghae the video clip please,” she instructs his father.

His father pull outs his cell phone from his coat pocket and tabs on the screen several times before he finds what he was looking. He walks over and hands it to Donghae. When Donghae looks down at the screen, his father had a news website pulled up on the web browser and the the page is open up to an article, headlining: _His Majesty’s Clandestine Affair Now Finally Out in the Open?!_

And attached to that is a video, right at the bottom of scandal inducing headline. Donghae looks up at his mother in horror but she nods her head grimly to tell him to keep going.

With shaky fingers, he tabbed play in the video and a scene of that unfold is the night of the dinner party.

Cameras weren’t allow in the royal garden party but then these days people have all kind of cellphones that even the most basic ones has a camera on it that can record. Anyone can be an amateur reporter in just a tap on the screen and unfortunately for Donghae, someone decided to be one that particular night.

The camera work is shaky and the video is a shoddy at best but Donghae can still make out the familiar figures on screen—his hands pawing at Hyukjae’s shirt and Hyukaje smiling as he tried to hold Donghae’s up, his arms wrapped around Donghae’s waist and Donghae curving toward him like a flower leaning toward the sun.

Words were exchange, but they weren’t clearly pick up by the phone’s audio but Donghae can make out several excruciating words coming from him such as “handsome,” “impressive jawline,” and, embarrassingly, “worship you.”

But it’s the last portion of the video that catches him by surprised, he hears, as distinct and obvious as the heaviness in his heart: “—you know, I would have, if it was for you, I would have come back sooner for you.”

The memory of that distilled night starts rushing back:

 

_Clutching at the lapel of the king’s coat like a Victorian maiden on the cover of some bodice ripping romance novels Donghae was privy to. “Your Majesty,” he said eyes wide, legs a little unsteady._

_“Are you alright?” the king asked, concerned obvious in his voice._

_Donghae gave the king a dubious look at first as though he wasn’t completely sure it’s actually him but, “Munbaeju, the Left Minister of Internal Affairs,” he explained, carefully pronouncing each word. He doesn’t know how he’d managed to stitch together a fully form sentence when everything was all fuzzy and the words were difficult to even form in his head but the answer were easily coaxed from his lips with the sway of the king’s voice alone. Sirens got nothing on the king it seemed. “He dared challenge me to a drinking game and I wasn’t going to let him win.”_

_The king frowned and he got this adorable little furrow between his eyes when he’s not exactly happy but doesn’t really want to say it. Oh gosh even his frowning face was terribly cute. “You shouldn’t have drink with him,” the king said._

_“He was the one who suggested it,” he replied with a sulky pout but then an overwhelming sense of trepidation pooled over him at the thought of the king’s disappointment toward him. “But please don’t be mad!”_

_“Donghae,” the king said, sighing. He touched Donghae’s cheek gently, his fingers just skimming on the surface of his skin but every touch left deep quaking ache in Doghae. “I’m not angry at you. Sir Munbaeju may be sixty-nine years old but that man had been drinking since he’d been his diaper. You lost before you even began.”_

_“That old bastard,” Donghae cursed under his breath, head eagerly learning into the touch as though he had been deprived of it all his life and Hyukjae was his one reprieve._

_The king smiled and it was so unfair how it almost knock Donghae out. “If your mother was here she would wash your mouth for that,” the king said, his voice heavy with amusement._

_“Woah,” Donghae said, legs wobbly and suddenly the floor was moving. How strange._

_The king abruptly dropped his hand from Donghae’s cheek—Donghae leting out a heedless whine at the loss of contact—to his waist as Donghae tried with much difficulty to regained balance. The king’s arms wrapped tightly around him and pulled him closer until Donghae could make out the dark speck of the King’s eyes, and his feet once again find even ground._

_Donghae’s stared shamelessly at the King’s angular and defined face, leaning close in till he’s murmuring love notes to the King’s impressive jawline. “Your jawline. It’s just so, so sharp that you could break me with it and I wouldn’t even care,” Donghae said, looking at the king with love struck eyes and so completely besotted that only a fool would mistake it for anything else._

_“Is that so?” the King replied, lip twitching slightly._

_Donghae nodded eagerly. “I could find an entire religion just on your jawline and there would be a line of people, stretching all the way to the sea, ready to join me,” he said in earnest._

_“That’s vaguely disturbing,” the king replied but not unkindly. His eyes were soft and bright, oh so pretty and shining like, like stars or something as they gaze down at Donghae and it’s like having the sun turned its full focus an insignificant flower. Donghae was going to get burn but he doesn’t think he care. “Oh Donghae, you’re going to be so mad at yourself in the morning.”_

_Donghae shook his head. “No, I really mean it but I bet you have people tell you all the time though.”_

_The King shook his head. “Fortunately, they don’t.”_

_Donghaefrowned, bristling in offense for his king. “Well, they should! You’re great! Everything about you is amazing, to tip of your toe all the way to your lovely head of hair but I love your smile the best though. It’s so open and beautiful that I sometimes forget to breath around you and people probably stop and stare at it in object worship and if they haven’t they really should. Now if only we could bottle up your smile and send it everywhere, the world would be a much better place.”_

_“My smile could bring world peace? That’s a first.” The king’s shoulders hunched over and his body started to tremble. Donghae thought a little worriedly, oh maybe it was the wind; it’s a cold night after all so he should probably cuddle closer to warm the king. He wouldn’t want the King to be sick, the nation would be in an uproar and Donghae would be very sad if anything happen to the king._

_Yes, definitely, he should do that right away but before he can performance a heinous act on the king’s person his stomach rolled, queasy and ill-boding, and forcibly he took a step back but the king held on and drew him back again._

_“Let me take you somewhere so you can rest,” the king said, hands on his back and the other carefully placed around his waist._

_The king’s hands were unfairly warm and his touch while gentle but firm and unignorable. They linger like heated marks seared onto his skin, as hot and heavy as the flame Donghae had been carrying around for Hyukjae. Donghae wanted to feel the flames lick down to the marrow of his bones; he wanted to be burned by it._

_He pushed the king away again, standing tall even though his legs felt like it’s going to melt into the ground and his stomach about to raise arms against him. “Hyukjae, I—“ he began, surging forward with his heart in his throat and the confession threatening to spill pass his lips but his stomach suddenly and abruptly protested against that._

 

Donghae doesn’t know if it fortunate or unfortunate that he never got the chance to finish his incendiary thought that night before his stomach threw a fit and the Imperial Security team tackled him to the ground.

“Oh god,” he says horrified, face dropping into his hands as though they can protect him from the nightmare and embarrassment of last night.

“Your face is plastered on twenty different news networks,” his mother informs him with a sour expression on her face.

“Oh god,” he says again and there aren’t enough prayer in the world to lend him a merciful death.

“Have you no respect for your sister and embarrassing yourself like that not only in front of His Majesty but to have the entire thing captured and archived on the internet so thousands of other can tune in and look at the circus you brought?! What were you thinking?” she demands, as fierce and furious as the day Donghae told her the secret and longing he had been carrying around since he was thirteen.

Donghae pales, the nauseating headache that he feels right has nothing to do with last night but the feelings of facing the full force of his mother’s disappointment in him. “I know,” he says quietly, completely chastised now.

“You don’t need to give them anymore reason to crucify you,” his mother says, and though the words are as sharp as ever her face softens for a split second as she looks at him almost with concern. “So you’ll be grounded for the next couple of days as the raucous you stirred up die down,” she says, dulling out sentences like he is eight all over again.

You can’t ground me, he wants to say, but his mother never let his age stop her from doing what she perceives as a learning experience. “I understand,” he says, instead.

His mother looks away from him, eyes staring pointedly at family portrait of theirs hanging on the wall across his bed and there’s an obvious pain in her voice as she say it, “Perhaps it would have been better if you didn’t return at all.”

Donghae press his lips together, a thin unhappy line occupied his face now as his chest tightens and the bluntness of her words cut deeper than any sharp edge she had pointed his way.

His father reaches out and squeezes his hand. “We’ll deal with it. Don’t worry,” he offers, a comforting contrast to his mother sever regret.

Through all the storms they had weathered together, his father’s was Donghae’s safe harbor for all the waves that rock had his life but even that assurance now isn’t enough. It sounds hallow in the face of the circumstance that Donghae finds himself in.

Donghae is a gay man borne in a country that’s still grounded in traditions and reservations of any new changes. No matter how swift the King and his sister’s ushered in new laws and break away from the archaic rules set up hundreds of years ago, the public would burn Donghae alive at the idea of Donghae setting his sight on their widower king and influencing the young and impressionable prince and princesses with his outlandish ideals. 

Donghae had run away, across multiple countries’ borders, to get away from it all but even he can’t escape it forever. He came back for his sister and her children that she left behind but to keep clinging on to this decades old unrequited love that he stills holds for his king, his brother in law.

Maybe they’re right about something after all, Donghae shouldn’t have come back.

 

\---

 

Here’s the story.

There was a boy and a prince and a love that died before it even have a chance to bear any fruit. It’s not a fairy tale, Donghae will say, there’s no happy ending here. It isn’t a tragedy either. It’s just part of life.

As long as Donghae can remember his family has always been deeply tied up to the Royal Family, they had been serving the Royal Family times of war and peace. Theirs is a record inked on the pages of history books and Donghae has always known Hyukjae, the same way he always known his own name.

And that was the start.

Donghae grew up in a loving, if not an exactly normal, household and with it comes all the power and influence that came with his last name. His grandfather is the former Minister of Foreign Affairs, his mother was groom walk the path of the second highest position in the land since she was eight, his father is a decorated veteran of two wars and is an admiral in the Korean’s navy, and it goes on and on. Each member of his family, past and present, is an outstanding figure who had left a defining mark in the history book.

There were heavy expectations and duty bound up in that last name. His older brother had risen above that and became the youngest attorney general to be appointed in his position. And his sister, his beautiful and fierce sister? She did that and _more_. 

Living in the shadow of his much more accomplished siblings, Donghae was stricken with a constant stream of insecurity and anxiety. He was supposed to walk the path that was paved for him by his family, but he could never measure up. He was never as smart or as good enough as his siblings and couldn’t meet the expectations that his family set upon him.

The pressure, it suffocated him. He knew they don’t mean to but when he had look at their hopeful faces all he could see were the heavy gazes that ripped into him and scrutinized everything he did, he was drowning in their expectations.

And even as young as he was back then Donghae was a coward through and through and so rather than facing his problems head on, he ran.  

When Donghae was thirteen, he ran away for the first time but his small act of rebellion was defeated by the fact that he hid in the Queen’s favorite greenhouse in the palace. His disappearing act only lasted for seven hours before Hyukjae had found him quietly napping in the greenhouse.

Donghae didn’t want to go home yet so Hyukjae stood by him and stay till the next morning. Under that glass roof, Donghae confessed his dream and heartbreak of writing stories of grand adventures beyond the confined of his family’s unbending rules and Hyukjae had held his hand as he quietly listened.   

Hyukjae was the only who truly understood Donghae. He knew that there was no future for them beyond the path their family had paved for them because Hyukjae, too, was defined by his title and the family he was borne to.

They were the same in that regard but yet so vastly different. The youngest amongst their siblings, borne into family where duty often trumps over personal feelings, and had carried their burden of their family’s hopes and dreams on their young shoulders with heavy heart.  But while Donghae used the excuse of being the youngest and least experience as an escape from his responsibilities, Hyukjae dutifully worked hard so he can support his sister for the day she’ll become queen.

What came next, it had seemed almost inevitable at that point like the plot point of a drama series.

Somewhere between the age of thirteen and sixteen, old enough to give a name to this burgeoning feelings of his but young enough to foolishly put all his hope into it, Donghae fell, hard and irreversibly. In love with this hardworking and sincere prince, who was still growing into himself but Donghae could already see Hyukjae’s bright future lay out in front of them, and he knew even back then Hyukjae was meant for something beyond laying on the dirty floor of a greenhouse; he belong among the stars in the sky.

Donghae was simply content to be in the shadows of inadequacy as long as Hyukjae was by his side but that was not how the story was intended to go. There was no script to life after all.

At twenty-three, Hyukjae’s sister, the Crown Princess, abdicated the throne to elope with her college professor. It was scandalous, incendiary, and caused a huge uproar amongst the public, but in the face of all that backlash Sora remained defiant to the very end, determined to live her life the way she dictated.

And so the world’s turned their focus toward the second prince instead. Hyukjae was made the Heir Apparent and everyone was thrilled because Hyukjae, studious reliable Hyukjae, was nothing like his wild sister and had certainly earned his place, but all Donghae knew at that time was Hyukjae was now even more far out of his reach than ever before.

Donghae decided then and there he would quietly nurse his love, nurture and tend to it as it grow up majestically but kill the thought of ever harvesting it’s fruit—he’ll be Hyukjae’s support pillar as he make strive to become a great king. It’ll be ok, Donghae could hold on but it was another lie he told himself in comfort.

But while Donghae fretted over his own troubled heart, he never had taken account of Hyukjae’s feelings. When Donghae wasn’t looking and stewing in his own worries, Hyukjae had fallen in love. And it was not with him.

Because love is a two way street and is it not owed, Hyukjae doesn’t solely belong to him.

Why he didn’t see the signs when it was always there—the soft quiet smile on Hyukjae’s face that he always wear around her, how his eyes instinctively drifting toward her as soon as she entered a room, and the way his body unconsciously leaned toward her as though he couldn’t bear to not be apart . It was so obvious, yet why didn’t he see it? Why didn’t he notice what was right the in front of him all along when it mirrored his own? Perhaps it was because he didn’t want to and pretended it wasn’t there, because the truth was almost unbearable.

She was so beautiful and brave in a way that Donghae could never be. Not once had he ever seen her bend to anyone; she lived wildly and sincerely, to the beat of her own drums even in the defiant of their family, and Donghae shouldn’t have been surprise that Hyukjae had fallen for her, not when she shine that bright. They were perfect for each other. The kind of match nobody would argue against.

The two people he loves most were in love with each other and have started dating, while Donghae watched silently on and can only feel the cracks in his heart started to splinter and cut deep rivets into his heart that were irreparable until it finally shatter from one big declaration from Hyukjae.

Three years later after they started dating, Hyukjae had dropped down on one knee for Hanuel, Donghae’s sister, and asked for her hand in marriage; in response to that Donghae went on a bender. He stopped going to school, partied hard and drank too much until he was sick of himself, that even his parents couldn’t stop his own spiral of self-destruction until Hanuel found him.

She had to pry the liquor from his hand and dragged him out of there. She took him back home and it was there that she asked, “Are you in love with Hyukjae?” And that was when the dam, that held strong for so long, finally broke under the relentless damange it had taken over the years.

“I’m sorry, I’m so, so sorry,” he’d sobbed, falling apart in his sister’s arms. “I didn’t mean to, I really didn’t but I—“

“Hush, it’s okay, Hae,” Hanael said, who always been kinder than anyone deserved. “Everything will be alright. I’ll fix this. I’ll make it all better, don’t you worry. Your big sister is going to take care of this.”

It was a lie, everything was never going to be alright again. Donghae fell in love with someone who he can’t ever have and it ruined everything.

Hyukjae deserved better. His _sister_ deserved better than that, but the damage was already done. Two days later, Hanael broke her engagement to Hyukjae, along with her own heart.

Donghae was a lot of things—selfish, entitled, and practically hopeless—but he was never outright cruel. It wasn’t Hanael’s sacrifice to make. His happiness shouldn’t be guarantee over hers, and so he did what he should have done in the first place. He dropped out of college and bought a one way trip out of Korea. He left. Left it all behind—his family, his home, and his love because that was all he had ever been good for was running away.

A year later Hanael married the man she loved in a grand and happy affair while Donghae and the world watched as they cemented their commitment to each other on live TV thousands of miles away.

In the ten years that follow afterward, Donghae not once had step foot back to Korea even as he visited every continent possible. His travels took him to the far corners of the world and not once had he look backward. During that time, he picked up a pen and started to write for the first time in a long time. He wrote books upon books based on his experience and poured his feelings onto those pages. It became something of an emotional release, to finally have a tangible proof of it, because Donghae had burned so quietly for so long that it almost felt surreal, that he once loved a prince and that prince loves another and their story ended before it even begin.   

As the years passed by, Donghae started to bury the past and the boy he had left behind as he continued to look forward. The further away he got from Korea the less he thought about it all together as though he could put enough distance between here and there that eventually there’ll be nothing for him to return to.  

Still, Donghae couldn’t fully cut himself off from his family entirely. He kept contact back home to the barest minimum despite his family’s protest but Donghae knew temptation when he saw one. Hanuel respected his wish and not once did she brought Hyukjae up whenever they find a time and space to share a private conversation for two. She filled the hours up by talking about her children and Donghae may have never met them face to face but he fell in love with them through her tired sigh, her amused laughter, and the love in her voice when she spoke of her children.

They are the precious children of the two people he loves most in the world, how could he not love them too?

Donghae would have been okay continuing to exist like this, content to aimlessly wander the land and never going back home again to face his past and heartbreak of an unrequited love, but because Donghae’s life is one big tragic cliché made for daytime soap opera, he came back anyway.

In a cruel twist of fate, that was too unfair and too sudden, he was given another chance to live a life he could have had at the cost of his sister’s own. Hanuel was caught in a fatal accident that left the nation in mourning, Hyukjae without a wife, and three children motherless overnight.

As shattered as he was, Donghae had hesitated at first to come back even for her funeral because he’d spent years escaping that suffocating place and a love that only brought him endless pain, why should he ever want go back there? It was ironic in many ways that in order to escape from the pain he ran half way across the world, and in doing so Donghae had finally found freedom he was seeking for but now it Hanuel’s death that dragged him back to the very place that nearly destroyed him once.

“If anything were to happen to me… you watch out for them won’t you?” she’d asked once and Donghae, although reluctant to agree, couldn’t say no. Not to her. Never to her.  

It was her death that may have brought him back but it was ultimately his promise to her that he chose to stay, despite everything. He couldn’t leave her children alone like that, bereave of a mother and loss in their grief.   

But finally coming face to face with the first love that haunted him since childhood, Donghae realizes with bittersweet clarity that after nearly a decade of separation, with thousand miles and the space of an ocean between them, not once did his feelings ever waver. It held steady and strong, burning as brightly as ever did before.

He came back for Hanuel and her children he tell himself, but a small selfish part him that was still that boy under the glass roof of that greenhouse all those years ago, knows it was always Hyukjae. It will always be Hyukjae.

**Author's Note:**

> so this was meant to parrallel magical nanny au in a way bc i was like WHAT IF donghae ended up being the nanny for the royal children and FALLS IN LOVE WITH THE KING... but then it became something totally diff and developed it own plot bc well me ////o\\\\\\\\. ANYWAY, this really pack a punch bc theres a lot of themes floating around and A LOT to discuss but i just want to basically get this out that it is 10000000% unrequitted love on donghae's part. hyukjae isn't in love with donghae at ALL (NOT YET ANYWAY HHAHAHA), so ya there's never been any doubt who hyukjae loves and that is hanuel, sad but true :P. but a person can love more than one person in their life and just bc hyukjae loves hanuel doesn't mean he can't eventually learn to love donghae too and that's the basis of royal nanny au it's that sometimes we get a second chance at love (even if it took a tragedy to start it :(((). the interesting thing is that i tend to write a bold daring donghae a lot in various 'verse but this donghae is cowardly, wrecked with insecurities, and emotionally weak but i think it fit the theme of the story bc donghae isn't the perfect mc of a fairy tale story (a good heart and a vibrant soul) but this isn't a fairy tale story either so :P.


End file.
